Management & Operations

Virginia Railway taps GlobeSherpa for mobile ticketing

The Virginia Railway Express (VRE), a joint project of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission and the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission, selected GlobeSherpa to provide a complete, end-to-end mobile phone ticketing software system for VRE riders.

When the new ticket system launches, VRE customers will be able to purchase and use VRE commuter rail tickets with just a few clicks on their smartphone.

GlobeSherpa was chosen from over 15 qualified vendors and after a lengthy competitive procurement and evaluation process.

"We wanted to give our customers a secure and convenient way of purchasing and validating VRE tickets and we believe GlobeSherpa's mobile ticketing system will be a tremendous leap forward for our riders," said Doug Allen, CEO at VRE. "Mobile ticketing technologies can reduce the cost of fare collection, help optimize operations, and improve the rider experience and we're pleased to get this project going."

VRE will be using GlobeSherpa's end-to-end mobile ticketing and fare collection platform that includes:

A rider application and eCommerce website for fast purchase and easy use of mobile tickets by VRE riders.

A fare inspector application to quickly authenticate and verify tickets.

A sophisticated transaction and operations management system back-office analytics software that allows VRE operations staff to manage the system through an easy-to-use, yet robust, cloud-based dashboard.

Through the app, all VRE fares will be available for purchase including Single Ride, Ten Trip, Five Day, and Monthly Passes. Riders will be able to purchase tickets for any origin or destination and pay with either a debit or credit card. Tickets are sent to users' phones in the form of a secure, animated electronic ticket that can be validated visually by conductors, or scanned by a conductor's handheld device using an encrypted barcode that will verify that the ticket is valid.

The mobile ticketing system will be designed to provide interoperability with regional partner fare products, including WMATA's SmartBenefits functionality and eventually include support for the New Electronic Payments Program.

The VRE mobile ticketing app will be available for download from an app store at no cost. The system is expected to become generally available in 2015.

Some members said they want to shift the emphasis of the search to focus on a fresh batch of candidates whose skills are more suited to fixing problems that have come to light in the transit system in recent months.

C. Mikel Oglesby brings almost a quarter of a century of experience in the transit industry to his position, most recently operating Oglesby Consulting LLC, a firm he established to provide transportation expertise to the public and private sectors.